Except This Time, We'll Get It Right
by Downlikeyourinternetconnection
Summary: Quinn/Santana. Mostly AU, college!future fic. Santana and Quinn reconnect in college and try to right all their high school wrongs, especially the ones against each other. This will be femslash!
1. Build Your Own Disaster

Title: Except This Time, We'll Get It Right (1/?)

Pairing: Quinn Fabray/Santana Lopez

Rating: R, this chapter for bad language.

Warning/Spoilers: No real specific spoilers, but this fic is AU from "Funeral" onwards. This fic is un'beta'd so there is probably a lot of mistakes.

Disclaimer: I do not own Glee or anything associated with Glee.

Word Count: 1,970 for this part.

Summary: Mostly AU, college!future fic. Santana and Quinn reconnect in college and try to right all their high school wrongs, especially the ones against each other.

* * *

><p>There are about six trillion reasons why Santana doesn't want to be here right now. The obnoxiously bubbly pop song that has been grating on her nerves for the past minute or so pushes that count to six trillion and <em>one<em>.

If she had known that Allie's tumble from the top of the pyramid which had resulted in a broken arm would also result in impromptu solo cheer tryouts, she would have probably broken the other arm in retaliation, but hindsight's a bitch, as is karma, which is probably why she's here now—Sociology paper due tomorrow be damned— feeling like she's in the middle of a _Bring it On _movie which is about to become _Bring it On 509: The Motherfucking Wrath of Santana _Lopez if she's forced to endure this torment for much longer.

The song—that motherfucking annoying ass song—loops into its overly repetitive chorus for what seems like the millionth time and Santana just barely resists the urge to bang her head against the table before her.

She knows that being here is supposed to be an honor of sorts. She's here because she's earned it, because even though she's only a sophomore, she has solidified herself as one of two of the squad's co-captains and their Coach has entrusted her, along with the other co-captain, the captain and the dance coordinator, with the daunting task of overseeing these tryouts and choosing a suitable replacement for a scarily talented flyer while she is away on coach-like "business" otherwise known as luring freshmeat to the school with incentives that are hardly seeming worth it right now, not to Santana at least, not after watching 14 hastily prepared individual routines all ranking from bad to downright disturbing.

At the rate this is going, Allie's arm will heal before they find a replacement for her and by then Santana may just have to revert back to plan A and break the other arm just to make herself feel better. Better yet, she'll break the other arm and then convince Coach to have Allie pick her own replacement. That seems like suitable punishment for a less than suitable extension, except Coach would never go for that; Coach Reyes is not Coach Sylvester and unlike Coach Sylvester, Coach Reyes thinks that taking a tumble from the top of the pyramid is something akin to a catastrophe not something caused by inadequacy or something warranting punishment; not that she'd ever really consider this punishment despite how many horrendous routines they have to sit through.

Just the thought of how many more dreadful routines she'll have to witness in the next hour is enough to make her revisit that banging her head against the table idea but her head is already kind of pounding because of some very questionable music selections and she has this sneaky feeling that a cracked skull won't exclude her from the tryouts they'd have to host to find a suitable replacement for her.

She sighs, trying her best to let go of her frustration on an exhale but only managing to attract the attention of the guy to her right.

The squad's other co-captain, Julian, a senior from Long Island, New York with the accent to prove it, flashes her a little lopsided grin and she can't help but roll her eyes at him when he nudges her with a broad shoulder.

"Look lively, Lopez," He murmurs teasingly, his green eyes sparkling with mirth as his lips curl into a positively insidious smirk.

She rolls her eyes at him again, nudging him back even though her shoulder merely collides with the stiff muscle of his triceps.

"Tell that to her," she mutters in reply, nodding towards the girl before them who, _thank God_, looks like she is finishing up a rather stiff and boring routine. "Is it too much to ask for just one person not to suck?"

"Apparently," he says, all laughter and not enough sympathy for Santana's tastes. She glares at him and he shrugs sheepishly. "Here," he slides a sheet of paper and a pen towards her. "Occupy yourself," he grins, the force of it lighting up his whole face and Santana realizes why when she glances down at the paper and realizes that he has handed over the task of note-taking to her.

"You're fucking lucky I'm bored, Julian," she growls, picking up the pen. At least now she gets to let out all the snide remarks she's been repressing about some of these routines.

And let them out, she does.

She's so engrossed in her description of how this one girl danced like she was being impaled on a spear that she doesn't even glance up when their last girl for the day walks in and steps confidently onto the center tumbling mat.

"Name?" she hears Sydney, their squad captain—a senior with enough "spark to ignite their whole squad with fervor" or in other words, enough spark to get on Santana's nerves on most days—ask.

"Quinn," Santana's pen thuds against the table just as her heart thuds against her chest, because no, it's not—it's can't be— "Fabray. My name is Quinn Fabray,"

Quinn Fabray, indeed.

Well, fuck. There are about six trillion and _two_ reasons why Santana doesn't want to be here right now. Perfectly windswept blonde hair and an icy hazel gaze nudges itself to reason number one.

Santana hasn't seen Quinn since… well, since the catastrophe that was glee club Nationals in New York. It was supposed to be perfect. Santana was going to come out— she did that—and leave New York with a glee club Nationals win under her belt and Brittany under her arm _finally_ as hers and nobody else's. She got one of those things, but it wasn't enough; she quit glee the moment she got back to Ohio and spent the rest of her time in high school avoiding glee—avoiding _her_—so much so that she didn't even get the news about Quinn renting an apartment in New York and convincing her mother and Figgins to sign her transfer form, effective immediately, until a week or so after Quinn had already left.

Santana rejoined the Cheerios a week after that, convinced Coach Sylvester to start coaching the squad again and led the squad, as their undisputed captain, to a definite win at Nationals. Coach Sylvester had received praise for championing the squad from their slump and Santana had received a cheer scholarship and a one-way ticket to Miami, none of which she hesitated taking.

It's not like there was anything keeping her in Ohio; Brittany had long since stopped trying to get her attention or apologize or explain herself or whatever it was she was trying to do, and her parents were extremely pleased that they wouldn't have to be paying any of her college tuition.

So, here she is now, and apparently, so is Quinn.

"What's your major, Quinn?" Sydney asks, and something registers in Santana's mind that she's _supposed _to be writing this down, but she's not; she's not doing anything but staring straight at the embodiment of everything Santana has tried so hard to forget.

"Public Relations,"

Julian makes an excited little clap next to her, but suddenly, there are connections being made that are not supposed to be connected because instead of seeing Julian's excitement over sharing a major with Quinn, she's seeing Kurt, cheeks reddened with glee after hearing that he's being allowed to perform a solo from some grand Broadway musical Santana has never heard of.

"Are you a freshman, Quinn?" Sydney questions.

"No. I'm a sophomore. I spent my freshman year studying oversees,"

"That's exciting," Sydney says, but no, it's really not. It's so fucking Quinn Fabray-esque that it could very well make Santana sick. "Where are you from, Quinn?"

Quinn looks at Santana, really looks at her, for what seems like the first time since she entered the room. Her lips curl into a smile that Santana really can't place and Santana really has to wonder what the fuck it is she's getting at.

"Ohio,"

"Oh!" It's Evelyn, the squad's dance coordinator, that speaks this time, her voice an excited shrill.

Santana doesn't dislike anyone on the squad… Ok, actually, that's a lie. She's dislikes quite a few people on the squad but she doesn't show any of them anything past her usual disdain and even then most of the squad have disregarded it and chalked it up to nothing more than a personality quirk. Then there's Evelyn. It's not that there's anything wrong with Evelyn except the fact she's all legs and rhythm and a bit too much quirk and it's so easy to substitute a face, to throw out what-ifs and what-should-have-beens; it's too easy and too painful, so Santana mainly just ignores her, like she ignored _her_, but it's hard to ignore someone she has to see every day, so she throws out insults, lets them roll off of her tongue like she means them and Evelyn disregards them too, just like _she _would.

She ignores the insults just like she's ignoring the glare Santana shoots at her.

"Santana's from Ohio!" She exclaims. "Aren't you, San?"

"Yea," Santana manages to croak out even though her throat feels heavy, like she's ingested lead, or even worse, like she's swallowed back thousands of shrouded memories.

"Right," Sydney thankfully interrupts before any more can be said. "Good luck, Quinn,"

Not that she needs it. Quinn's routine is all levels of Coach Sylvester type perfect and Santana's not the only one who notices.

"So, it's a yes on Quinn?" Sydney asks as soon as the room clears out for the "deliberation" process to begin.

"No!" Santana says before her brain can even process the hostility behind her word. This is not high school, she knows this. This squad is not under the iron fist of one Sue Sylvester, so she knows Coach Reyes would never usurp her; she fits in here; she's subtly out, just how she wants it, people respect her, hell, they even like her, and most of all, they know nothing of her past except she's a girl from Ohio and she's one hell of a tumbler. She has worked so hard to keep it that way and she intends to keep it that way so fuck Quinn Fabray and all those suppressed memories she's threatening to carry with her; fuck it all.

"No!" she says again more forcefully.

"Santana," Evelyn starts but Santana just shakes her head forcefully.

"No!"

"Santana, I hate to use majority rules on you here, but…"

Santana grips her cell phone so tightly that she's almost positive that it has shrunk in her palm. The phone rings once, twice before she hears the static of the phone line.

* * *

><p>"Hello?"<p>

Santana sighs.

"Quinn Fabray, welcome to the Blue Dragons Cheer Squad—"

"Santana?"

Santana ignores the interruption.

"You are welcome to join us at practice tomorrow evening at seven PM sharp but you are not required to come to practice until next week Monday. You are, however, required to come to a fitting tomorrow morning at eight so we can order your gear. Gym workouts are every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday at five AM. Your partner will be Julian Connors. He is a—"

"Santana?" Quinn repeats. "I—"

"You what, Quinn?" Santana asks, unable to keep the aggression out of her voice.

"I'm not here to—I didn't know—"

"Spit it out, Fabray!"

"Can we maybe talk?" Quinn asks, "In person?" she adds before Santana can shoot down the idea.

Santana wants to say no; every instinct she has is screaming for her to say no, but she finds herself sighing.

"Can you meet me in the campus commons in fifteen?"

"I'm already here, actually,"

TBC… Maybe? I don't know. Tell me if you guys thinks I should continue.


	2. This Time Could Be Different

The tension between them is so palpable that Santana would hardly be surprised if they were being shrouded from the rest of the people filtering through the Commons by the sheer intensity of it.

She half expects to wake up any minute now and realize that all of this was some oddly realistic dream, but then again, the thought of her dreaming about Quinn Fabray is even weirder than her current reality and seriously, her currently reality—sitting here across from Quinn Fabray in all her _fucking perfect _glory—is weird enough.

"You know," Quinn breaks their awkward silence, her fingers drumming idly against her coffee cup. "I had a little speech prepared for if I ever saw any of you guys again,"

_Of course _she did.

Santana could have guessed this was coming and as prepared as she was, it still makes her irrationally angry.

"Well, I can save us both some time and tell you right now that I don't wanna hear it. I don't want your explanation or your apology or anything else you've rehearsed to rehash at me, Quinn,"

Quinn nods, her bottom lip trapped anxiously between her teeth.

"I know," she says. "I figured you wouldn't want to hear _anything_ I have to say and why would you, right? I should have told you I was leaving; I should have told someone, _anyone_, but I was just hurting so much; too much to realize that you were hurting too, San. After Britt—"

"_Don't_!" Santana warns, shaking off Quinn's touch as she reaches across the table to comfort her or pity her or whatever the hell it is that Quinn does nowadays. "Just don't come up in here and do that, Quinn. I'm done with high school. I'm over it and I don't wanna go back,"

"I get that," Quinn agrees. "I really do. That's why I want to start over, Santana,"

"Haven't you run out of middle names for that?"

It slips out before Santana can stop it.

It's a cheap jibe, probably way too reminiscent of high school for someone who just said they were over that, but Quinn doesn't rise to the bait like she would have back then, instead, she leans closer, so close that Santana can see the calm in usually calculating eyes.

"I want _us_ to start over, San," she murmurs.

Part of Santana really wants to believe that. She wants to think that that they can somehow just forget their history; she really wants to think that maybe she could see in Quinn now what she saw in her during their freshmen year of high school but all she sees when she looks at her is a past she's tried too hard to get away from.

She sighs.

"You're right Quinn. Let's start over," she says, leaning in closer. "Let's start right now in fact. You're new to the squad, and I'm gonna treat you like I'd treat any other new girl. So, don't cross me, or I will ends you. Got it? Great!" she gets up, gathering her things. "Nice chat, Quinn"

She's just about to leave when Quinn calls out to her again.

"What?" she asks irritably, glaring at the blonde, which hardly seems to faze her.

"You're right; I'm new to the squad. I'm practically new to the school too. I could use a friend, Santana,"

"There are 40,000 people at this school, Quinn," she replies. "You'll find one"

* * *

><p>"So…?"<p>

"So what?" Santana asks, leaning on Julian's shoulder as she fixes her running shoes.

"So… Sydney said she saw you with the new girl,"

_Fuck! _So, that's what this impromptu jog was about; usually she and Julian just go to the gym together after their afternoon classes, but when Julian wants to jog instead, she knows that really means he wants to talk. She just assumed it was boy problems but now that she knows what it really is, she'd rather talk about cock 24/7 instead of discuss this.

She sighs.

"Yeah," She draws the word out, feigning nonchalance even though she's seriously panicking.

"Yeah?" he asks.

"Yes, I had a conversation with the new girl,"

"I knew it!" He squeals and Santana's really contemplating ways to _kill _Sydney if she really did eavesdrop on her conversation; like seriously, people snooping in on her past is the _last _thing she needs right now.

Fuck, she might just kill Quinn Fabray while she's at it too because this seriously isn't even fair. Quinn's had her "new start." Fuck, she's had it twice because God knows what she was doing gallivanting around New York becoming this true 60's hippie slash annoying hipster hybrid, but _this_, this is Santana's life. This is what she's made for herself despite all of that high school bullshit and she'd be damned if she let the reemergence of Quinn Fabray (clearly a bad omen) ruin all of that.

"You know _what_ exactly?" she asks, ready to weave herself into a lie if she has to. She's pretty sure she can come up with a very large number of reasons as to why their conversation could have been misinterpreted.

"I know that you like her!"

Santana lets out a sigh of relief that she quickly disguises as a scoff.

And then she _actually _scoffs.

"That's ridiculous!"

_And nasty and just plain no_.

"Why?" Julian asks, far too mocking for Santana's liking. "Because she's _so_ your type,"

"Please, you're more my type than she is,"

Julian laughs.

"I saw how you were looking at her during her audition!"

"You mean like I wanted to throw up?" she asks, incredulously. "Because I really wanted to throw up!"

"Well, _damn_, if you're that into her, you should invite her to the ADPhi party tonight. You're still coming, right?"

"You're clearly not listening to a single word I'm saying. _No_, I'm not into her and _yes, _I'm still coming but _no_, I'm not inviting her!"

"It's cool," he grins, taking off running before she can stop him. "_I'll just invite her for you_," he calls back.

Santana rolls her eyes, taking off to catch him.

He seriously better not invite her!

Fuck, Santana doesn't know what she'll do if she ends up at a party with Quinn Fabray; hopefully, she won't have to find out.

**OMG, I came back to this fic after all. I won't abandon it from here on out, I promise. Review please =) Also, you can hit me up on my tumblr (downlikeyourinternet (dot) tumblr (dot) com where I'll soon be posting excerpts from fics I'll probably never finish! **


	3. Trying Our Best

Santana had honestly thought that bribing/threatening Julian out of inviting Quinn Fabray to this party would have ended this problem but clearly, even Santana Lopez has moments of naivety.

Apparently, Quinn's getting on very well on her desperate quest for friends. In fact, she's surrounded by at least eight of them right now—audacious frat boys, that is; "friends" whose _friends_ would obviously like to get to know Quinn very well.

Under usual circumstances, Santana would be amused. Quinn Fabray is nothing if not an attention whore, unless, of course, that attention is of the sexual nature, then she tends to shy away like a kicked puppy, citing bible verses and spewing feminist rants to account for her prudishness.

Right now, she is anything but prudish though.

Right now, she is very, _very _drunk.

It's not like Santana cares or anything but she's been sitting here for about an hour now, sipping her rum and coke and watching as red cup after red cup somehow makes it into Quinn's hands, some being passed on from guys Santana doesn't even recognize and she's been a frequent at ADPhi parties ever since Welcome Week of her freshman year.

The ADPi girls are here too, as usual, and Santana was really hoping to use this party as an opportunity to _meet _some of the new girls who recently pledged but every single time she scans the crowd, her eyes seem to divert back to Quinn; Quinn who has gone from drunkenly flitting from arm to arm of various very drunk frat guys to hanging off of the arm of one very particular, very calculating frat boy.

_So typical_.

Of all the guys at this party who would be happy to vie for even a little bit of Quinn's attention, Quinn would just so happen to gravitate towards the one who is such a man-whore that his reputation alone has granted him the frat nickname "bad news," a pseudonym that precedes him well with the number of girls that end up drunk in his bed and then end up the laughing stock of ADPhi the very next day after he brags about his exploits.

Santana doesn't even really have a problem with the guy; in fact, she's known him since freshman year, back when he was still Chase and just pledging for the fraternity and she was still coming into herself— deciding who she wanted to be here and how much of herself she was willing to be open about. He had pursued her endlessly and annoyingly back then until she eventually just told him she was a lesbian and he had laughed and told her that he was one too before Julian swooped in with his warnings about the dangers of hooking up with frat guys, especially wannabe frat guys and she came out to him too and that was really the end of that.

She hasn't really talked to Chase since but sometimes at these parties while she's at least pretending to pay attention to what some sorority girl is saying and he's got some drunk girl hanging off his every word, he tends to catch her eye across the room and she knows that he's trying to insinuate that they're one in the same—him and her—which really pisses her off to no end because they can't even be compared! He clearly intends to get the girl of his choice as drunk as possible—she's heard that he's even dabbled in harder stuff but that's a big accusation and she won't spread it unless she has proof—and she actually shows up to these things early, even before the alcohol is free-flowing because she actually prefers whichever blonde has caught her attention this time to be lucid by the time they sneak back to a room with far too many tallies lining ceilings and get intoxicated on something far more fulfilling than alcohol.

Seriously, Santana doesn't need alcohol to make chicks want her. _Fuck_, she doesn't even know how Chase does it because drunk girls are high on Santana's list of the most annoying things in the universe! Take Quinn Fabray right now, for instance; the way her cheeks are flushed red and she keeps throwing her head back to laugh at jokes that cannot possibly be _that _funny; it's disgustingly annoying.

It's still not nearly as disgustingly annoying as the fact that Quinn's pretty much letting Chase openly feel her up in the middle of a party!

She's so drunkenly pliable right now that it's nauseating. Even worse, it feels familiar! It feels like Santana's been here before, seen _this_ before.

"Quinn's pretty drunk right now!"

_Fuck_, she's even heard that before!

/

"_Quinn's like really drunk right now,"_

_Santana rolls her eyes, leaning back against the couch to take in the blonde hovering above her. _

"_I think you are like really drunk right now," she counters, smirking as Brittany's bottom lip pushes forward into a perfect pout. _

"_You know I'm not, San!" Brittany murmurs. "I've only been drinking soda, just like you told me to,"_

_Santana rolls her eyes again, glancing around to make sure no one is paying attention to them. _

_No one is. _

_The music is too loud and the cheap alcohol too abundant for anyone to even begin to think that the way Brittany is leaning over the back of the sofa—so close to Santana that her words kiss skin—is anything but her trying to be heard over the pulsing bass of some techno dance track. _

_In fact, the music is too loud and the cheap alcohol too abundant for anyone to even begin to notice that Brittany's been drinking straight Coke since the party started. _

_It's perfect really. Just how Santana wants it! _

"_You remember the plan?"_

"_Of course San," Brittany giggles, her breath tickling the back of Santana's neck. _

"_Ok then. Just, I don't know, take your top off or something when you're ready and I'll swoop in to take your drunk self home and nobody will question a thing," _

"_And then we can get our sweet lady kisses on?" _

"_Yeah Britt-Britt. Just hurry with your signal! This party's lame; I don't wanna spend more time here than I have to," _

"_But what about Quinn?"_

"_What about her?" Santana asks, beyond aggravated that Brittany isn't bounding off to go create a scene already! She seriously just wants to go back to Britt's to get her mack on. _

"_She's really drunk!"_

"_Whatever!" Santana scoffs. "She's a big girl, Britt. She can handle herself,"_

"_Yeah, but she'd take care of you if you were drunk, San," Brittany reasons, her bottom lip jutting out enough to break Santana's resolve in a way that her words won't. _

"_Fine," She groans. She's seriously only doing this because it's Brittany and she knows that disagreeing with Brittany right now will only hinder her plans for tonight. Besides, Quinn's house is on the way to Britt's anyway so they can drop off the prayer prude and finally have some alone time. "I'll grab her. Where is she?"_

"_Last time I saw her, she was back there dancing with Puck," Brittany replies, jutting her chin towards the makeshift dance floor where Cheerios' uniforms and McKinley jerseys seem to be spinning and blurring into blots of red. _

_Santana rolls her eyes, sitting up to glance across the mass of sweaty dancing bodies until she spots Quinn… and Puck and then she's seeing red as metaphorically as she is literally. _

_This is fucking typical of Quinn Fabray!_

_When they had devised their plan to climb the McKinley social ladder together, Quinn chose Finn; for some fucking reason or another, she saw that oafish boy wonder and envisioned him as her ladder to eventual senior prom queen so she flirted and batted her eyelashes and twirled around him in her pleated skirt until he fell all dopey-eyed in love with and from then on, Finn was Quinn's which of course left Santana—whose ambitions never quite soared as high as prom queen—with Finn's best friend, man-whore extraordinaire, Puck. _

_Santana has never minded really; she actually likes Puck. Most of the time at least. She likes him most when he's not collapsed on top of her all sweat and musk and wet kisses that send shivers down her spine in all the wrong ways but she can handle that because their arrangement works. Sometimes he strays and Santana has to do a little damage control and rough up whichever chick is foolish enough to concede to his advances but that only adds to her reputation in the end because girls are fucking terrified of her and that's the way Santana likes it. _

_This little Quinn obsession that Puck has developed can damage her in a way that Santana's not completely sure is fixable. _

_It shouldn't matter though because the last person who should be conceding to Puck's advances is Quinn, but here she is, letting him dip his palms entirely too low on her hips while she throws her head back against his shoulder, laughing pretentiously, all flushed cheeks and flirty glances. _

_Santana is fuming. _

_Santana is also not stupid enough to create a scene._

"_Leave her. Let's just go!" _

"_But San—"_

"_Just drop it!" She gets up, tugging Brittany's arm for her to follow. "Let's go!"_

/

"Let's go,"

"What?" Julian asks, looking absolutely stunned and more than a little confused.

"Julian, let's go help her,"

"For all the talk of her absolutely nauseating you, you wanna go help her?"

"She's drunk. She's clearly not thinking right,"

"And _you_ care?"

She doesn't.

She doesn't want to at least but she was there when Quinn made this mistake last time; she was the one who came up with most of the preggers jokes after it.

It's not like she's trying to atone for it or anything, it's just, it would be stupid to let it happened again.

"She's our squad mate,"

"She wouldn't be if you had anything to do with it,"

Which is true; she would be thousands of miles away if Santana had anything to do with it but clearly Santana has nothing to do with it because Quinn is right here, stumbling drunkenly into Chase's arms, ready to let him carry her right into a night that she'll clearly regret in the morning.

She sighs irritably.

"Look, are you gonna help or what?"

/

Julian turns out to be pretty good help, especially when Santana almost completely levels Chase for grinning all too smugly and suggesting they just have a threesome if she wants Quinn too because he's gotten her "ready" enough for the both of them.

Quinn seems to have the same reaction as Santana to the suggestion because she bounds off to the bathroom positively green in the face. Santana almost stays to really give Chase a piece of her mind—or her fist—but Julian waves her off, gesturing for her to go after Quinn while he deals with the pissed off frat boy.

Surprisingly, she doesn't find the blonde slumped feebly over the toilet, instead, she finds her in the bathroom with her head tipped back against the wall and her eyes skyward, staring at a point on the ceiling.

When she gets closer, she can see that Quinn is trembling slightly, her chest heaving with breaths so quick and jagged that Santana's sure she's hyperventilating.

"Jeez, Fabray!" She wants to say something snarky—possibly even just really fucking insulting—but Quinn looks so honest to God shaken up that she can't really bring herself to do anything but tell her to take deep breaths and run soothing circles on her shoulder until she's at least almost sure that she isn't going to die right this moment.

"You ok?"

Quinn nods shakily, closing her eyes tightly. She tries to peel herself off of the wall but she stumbles a bit and Santana reaches out to steady her.

"Here," she puts Quinn's arm around her shoulder, taking a bit of her weight. Quinn curves into her and Santana wonder if it's muscle memory, if it's the numerous Cheerios injuries that put them in this same position that makes this so easy. She also wonders if it's muscle memory that makes Quinn's other arm flop uselessly to her side like she was expecting someone else to be there the same exact way that Santana glanced past her, expecting to be met by worried blue eyes.

This is exactly why Santana doesn't want Quinn near her, because there are too many memories, too many triggers for those memories in Quinn but this isn't high school; this is her new life which apparently now includes Quinn Fabray as her squad mate; Quinn Fabray who is wasted right now and needs her help.

She sighs, pulling Quinn more firmly into her and taking a tentative step forward. .

Clearly, she's just gonna have suck it up and roll with these punches as they come.

Starting now.

"Where do you live, Q? I'll take you home,"

/

Apparently, she lives on campus which is about ten minutes too far out of Santana's way so she takes her to her one-bedroom apartment instead.

Quinn's dramatic near death experience seems to have sobered her up a bit because Santana doesn't even have to help her out of the car when she gets home and she only stumbles once—Santana steadies her again, thank God— on their trek up three flights of stairs.

"You can have the bed, I'll sleep on the couch," Santana says once they're in the apartment.

Some books are thrown hazardously over random places and there are a few jackets strewn over most available flat surfaces but it's clean and it's homey enough for a student apartment and most importantly, there's nothing Santana spies that she needs to subtly get rid of in Quinn's presence. In fact, Quinn's not even really taking in her surroundings anyway; she's taking in Santana instead.

"Santana," she grasps Santana's arm before she can put distance between them. "Thanks,"

There's something in the way she says it; even though she should be disgustingly drunk, her voice is startlingly clear and her eyes so genuine that Santana knows she's not just thanking for giving her the crappy bed in comparison to the crappy couch; she's thanking her for everything.

It doesn't change anything though. So, Santana's resigned herself to the fact that she's going to have to deal with the reemergence of Quinn Fabray, doesn't mean she wants to be her friend or anything.

"I didn't do it for you," she states lamely even though _I did it because I didn't do it last time _almost slips off her tongue and she covers it up with a scowl and arms crossed tightly across her chest.

"Believe it or not, I have a conscience and I don't need you getting raped at a frat party on it,"

Quinn smiles softly at her, reaching out to touch her again even though this time it's fleeting, just fingertips quickly brushing against her knuckles.

"Thanks anyway," she says. "I kind of have a track record for doing stupid things while drunk, don't I?"

"Sure do," Santana agrees and she thinks that's the end of it. She's done her good deed for the century and she's completing it by gathering some clean sheets and pouring Quinn a glass of water.

She's in the kitchen area wishing the water filter didn't run so slowly when Quinn speaks again.

"You know, I saw her. _Beth_. In New York,"

Santana manages to keep her surprise off of her face but she doesn't have to because when she glances up at Quinn, she's leaning with her back against the couch and her eyes are fixed on the floor.

Santana kind of wishes she really was disgustingly drunk right now instead of disgustingly sad.

"She's perfect," Quinn sighs, nervously playing with the material of the couch. "She's so perfect,"

"Well, I'm pretty sure your parents genetically mutated you to have perfect genes, so it's not surprising." Santana aims for humor even though she's pretty sure it's disturbingly true.

Her attempt at diversion goes nowhere though because when Quinn lifts her head to look at her, the undertones of their whole evening are right there on the surface, shimmering in Quinn's eyes.

"You know how many times I've thought back to that night and wished I would have done something differently. I mean, you never expect _one night _to alter your life so much but I knew he didn't have a condom—"

"You knew?"

Santana doesn't even try to hide her surprise this time, not when everything she's thought about that night, everything she's heard and assumed, has been shattered with one statement because Quinn _knew _and she risked it anyway.

Quinn nods shakily.

"All along,"

"And you didn't you stop him?" Santana asks, crossing over to her now because she's _curious_, mostly confused, but more than a little curious.

Quinn shrugs but it doesn't take that weight off of her shoulders; she looks heavier now than Santana has ever seen her, wrought full with regret and fear and just enough hope that she doesn't shatter.

"Maybe I wanted to feel something," she says. "Haven't you ever felt like that? Like, just so empty that you'd give anything, do anything, go anywhere just to feel even a tiny something?"

"No," the denial slips out without thought because Santana is so used to denying everything but there are maybe two people in the world who know when Santana's not quite being honest and she's leaning on the back of her couch next to one of them and the other is so deep-rooted in just about every interaction she and Quinn have shared that her presence has been hovering like a phantom limb ever since Quinn walked into that try-out.

Santana sighs, knowing that Quinn's silence is far from her acceptance of her answer but because she'd rather not waste her time if Santana's not going to be honest.

"Maybe I liked feeling nothing," she admits.

Quinn nods in understanding.

"Because something hurts too much?" she broaches, treading lightly over the subject like she knows that stepping on it too harshly could be explosive.

Santana just nods, suddenly exhausted.

"_Because something hurts too much_," she agrees, handing the glass of water over to Quinn and gesturing towards the bedroom door.

"Good night, Quinn,"

Quinn smiles at her, nudging Santana with her arm slightly like they've made some kind of progress or something.

"Night, Santana," she says softly, disappearing behind the bedroom door.

Santana stares at the closed door until the pristine white blurs her vision. She wonders if they really did make progress. She wonders even more if she really minds.

* * *

><p><strong>Thanks for the reviews guys! I think I finally know the direction I want to go with this but if you have suggestions or anything then feel free to tell me or you can hit me up at my tumblr: downlikeyourinternet (dot) tumblr (dot) com. <strong>

**Review please! **


	4. Constant Tragedy Connecting You and I

"So, was it worth it?"

Santana takes a swig of the wine in her hands, fingers playing along the edge of the label fraying against the cool glass of the chilled bottle.

She picks idly at the wet paper, ignoring the cloudy hazel eyes that are no doubt piercing into her from where Quinn is wrapped in blankets on the floor next to the mattress Santana calls her bed.

This is the second bottle this week. She's lost count of the number for the month but Quinn picks the best wines—and has never been ID-ed in her fucking life—so Santana reasons that's why she lets her stay.

It's at least legit why she let her stay the first time because seriously, not letting her get roofied and raped by some frat skeeve at a party isn't an invitation for Quinn to show up at her apartment a week later in the middle of the night but she came with an already chilled bottle of aged semi-sweet red and Santana had had a kinda shitty day so that was that.

The second time, Santana was less nice about it but Quinn had let it slip she had taken the bus to get to her apartment—apparently, she never really got back into good graces with the 'rents after the getting knocked up thing and then the moving to New York thing came with the price of her selling her car—so Santana let her stay then just so her not letting Quinn get raped at a frat party deed wouldn't be undone by Quinn unsuspectingly getting raped on a bougie bus back to campus.

It kinda spiraled out of control after that. Quinn started crashing on her couch almost daily because campus living sucks and her roommates are crazy and Santana just kinda stopped complaining because letting Quinn borrow her couch and car—even since high school, Quinn, despite being taller than her has been the only person who doesn't adjust anything when driving her car—often equates to a fully stocked fridge, home-cooked meals, a full gas tank and like now, the occasional bottle of liquor.

It's not so bad really. It's not like they're friends or anything; it's just kinda like sponsoring a hobo who isn't really homeless.

A not-really-homeless hobo who she just happens to get tipsy with on a frequent basis…

It seriously isn't as bad as it sounds; or at least it isn't as bad as Santana really kinda hoped it'd be.

Quinn's actually pretty funny when she's drunk. It seems that when she has a lot less to be angry about, she becomes an overly philosophical drunk instead and when Santana has a lot less to be overemotional about, she's more than content to just giggle over Quinn's theories of everything.

Occasionally though, drunken Quinn lends her mouth as the patron of vague ass questions and as much as Santana tries to ignore them, curiosity gets the best of her and like now, she finds herself leaning over her bed, head-on facing Quinn's far too bright stare.

She rolls her eyes—mainly at herself for not being able to resist the temptation to find out what the fuck Quinn is talking about— handing over the almost finished bottle of wine.

"Was what worth it, Fabray?"

Quinn shrugs.

"You know,"

Actually, Santana doesn't know or she wouldn't have wasted her breath asking. She says as much and maybe her approach is a bit aggressive or something because Quinn rolls her eyes this time.

"_Everything_," she clarifies, which once again, so not helpful. "_High school_, the backstabbing, the betrayals, the meaningless sex. Was it worth it?"

Santana lets out an annoyed growl, flopping back against her bed and flinging a forearm against her closed eyelids to shield herself from Quinn's gaze.

Sometimes Quinn is relatively ok, and then she goes and ruins it all by doing something like this.

They've been doing really fucking fantastic in public with this them-having-never-met-before-the-try-outs scheme. It works for them—or for Santana particularly— because no one delves into Santana's past and no one delves into Quinn's really either and maybe there are a few downsides to this like sometimes Santana's snark falls short because of it (like last week during practice when Quinn couldn't seem to stick her extension and Santana nailed a perfectly timed "What happened, Quinn? You used to be good!" but no one really batted an eyelash because clearly the only reason that'd really sting is because of the history between them) but ultimately, it's worth it and they do kind of drop the pretense when they're alone together anyway.

And by drop the pretense, Santana means tread very lightly over the less volatile subjects sprinkling their intertwined past. But that's kinda the thing though; that's why this thing—whatever not-really-friendship is happening between them now—works, because there are no not-volatile subjects between them so they need this layer of gloss over them or else they're really just two people linked by a series of really fucking unfortunate events.

Events that Santana would rather not dwell on but Quinn seems to thrive on and now they're at a sort of drunken crossroads with their conflicting emotions and Quinn's eyes are heavy on her and her limbs and lips have been made heavy from the alcohol and… well, was it worth it?

She's not even fucking sure.

"I don't—" she shrugs heavy shoulders. "You tell me. You went through it too,"

_Aversion 101. _

"I didn't finish it though,"

_Deflection 101_. Reason number six billion and twenty two why she and Quinn _can't _be friends; they've studied from the same handbook—they'd never get anything civil done.

Quinn shrugs, leaning up on her elbows to pass the bottle back to Santana. Santana swishes the liquid against the glass bottle and it barely slaps the surface, a clear indication that she's too drunk for this conversation; of course, that doesn't stop Quinn.

"I mean, of course I finished high school, but you _finished _it. Rumor has it you even have an eight by ten on Sue Sylvester's hall of fame,"

"It's actually a twenty-four by thirty-two,"

Quinn laughs, the sound reverberating from deep in her throat and curling warm around Santana like a cocoon. She shivers from the force of it or from the surprise of it or from something completely unrelated to the way Quinn's lips pucker around the sound and her cleavage heaves beneath the low cut of her halter.

Not that she noticed that stuff.

Or not that noticing that stuff means anything because _of course_ she noticed that stuff; she's only human. It's just that she hasn't really heard Quinn laugh— like _really_ laugh— in so long that she'd forgotten how pleasant a sound it can actually be.

She almost doesn't want it to end.

"Fine, twenty-four by thirty-two," Quinn concedes, chuckles tapering off into curiosity. "What I'm saying is, being where you are now right now, do you regret what it took to get here? Like, would you change it if you could even if it meant being somewhere different?"

'I—" she thinks about Glee and Brittany and where she ought to be versus where she is. She thinks about a one bedroom apartment in New York and a school for performing arts with her singing and the perfect blonde girlfriend dancing through their apartment. She had it all planned out back then and now she wouldn't even know how to get it if it tickled her palm and pleaded to be touched.

She sighs.

It's not that she doesn't want it still—God, she wants it so fucking badly—but in hindsight, she doesn't even know if there were any right decision she could have made back in high school to get it.

She does know though, that if she had to trade that twenty-four by thirty-two for the New York apartment and the perfect girlfriend, it'd take less than a heartbeat, so she guesses it wasn't really worth it. She almost says as much but then she remembers that she's talking to Quinn Fabray and admitting her regrets is akin to admitting a weakness and she's still not entirely sure that Quinn's not collecting her weaknesses to use against her in the future so she shrugs instead.

"I dunno. What do you think?"

Quinn gazes at her, her eyelids heavy and her cheeks flush from the alcohol. For a terrifying moment, Santana's almost sure Quinn is going to point out all she could have done, all the times she fell short, all the times she didn't even try, but Quinn falls back against the flurry of blankets she's propped upon, hazel eyes searching the ceiling.

"Honestly," her voice floats like it's travelling great distance, like Quinn's not even here—she probably isn't. "I don't think you're all that happy here, Santana,"

As annoyingly meddling Santana knows Quinn to be, that surprises her. The way the words drift and cling to her, like it's something that had to be said for her to realize the truth behind it, surprises her even more.

"I pretend to be asleep sometimes, San, but I can hear you come in and I don't even have to look to know it's a different girl each time. And I just listen to the footsteps and I can always tell yours apart because they're heavy. It's like you're walking to your death or something but I can't—_I don't_—understand why you do it if it doesn't make you happy and then I realized it's because you're still searching for happiness," She sounds more distant that ever, the wistfulness coating her vocal cords like thick syrup. "You gave it up when you had it in high school,"

She wants to deny it.

She wants to say she's just fucking peachy here.

She wants to say that she never had this happiness Quinn thinks she saw in her. Or even if she did have it, she didn't give it up; it was torn from her fingertips abruptly and replaced with despair until she found it within herself to cling to contentment.

She wants to say so much but sad hazel eye are searching her, daring her to be honest, and suddenly it makes sense.

Quinn's searching too.

New York was a pit stop.

Quinn hasn't stopped searching.

She's searching her now.

"So, was it worth it?" Quinn asks again.

She's reaching, searching out for something Santana's never really gave to her. _Honesty_.

"No," she's not sure if the puff of air the word travels on comes from her lungs or manages to squeeze its way from her heart but it's the truth. "I'd change almost everything,"

Quinn nods, her breath deep and shaky as she sighs..

"Me too," she admits softly. "You know one thing I'd never change though?"

"Hmm?" Santana asks, suddenly exhausted from the emotional strain of this conversation.

She's expecting Quinn to say _Puck _or _Beth _or anything to do with the Baby Gate that so suddenly shook McKinley to its core but Quinn leans up on her elbows once again, lips curling tight into a small smile.

She extends her hand to Santana, fingertips brushing hers gently.

"Hi," she grasps Santana's hand, shaking firmly, "Quinn Fabray,"

The day they met.

Freshman year in the torture chamber of a trailer Sue Sylvester rented to use as a waiting room for Cheerios tryouts.

Fuck, that's probably where all their troubles started. That day, in that trailer, her hand clammy as it grasped Quinn's tightly.

If there was a single moment in high school that she can pinpoint that set her train on course for wreckage then that was it.

If there was a single moment that she could change; one singular moment that she could do differently so that everything would be different, so that she had never put on that pleated skirt, so that she'd never had been so worried about her image and her reputation that she repeatedly chose the closet over her best friend, so that she'd never have had a Brittany to lose in the first place…

Yeah, she'd not change it either.

"Hi," her hand is clammy beneath Quinn's but she grasps tightly. "Santana Lopez. Are you a flier or a tumbler?"

* * *

><p><strong>Sorry updates are taking so long, guys! Finals pretty much killed me. lol Also, sorry that the pace of this story is dragging so slowly, but I really think they need to repair their friendship before they move into a stage beyond friendship. Anyway, review please! Also, you can always hit me up on my Tumblr: downlikeyourinternet (dot) tumblr (dot) com<strong>


	5. Moving a Mountain

It happens in slow motion.

It's not like Santana is staring at her legs or anything. It's just, she has good form and Santana _appreciates_ good form and of course, it's kind of her job to work out how she can turn good form into fucking fantastic form.

So, they're at practice and she's just looking and because she's just looking, she catches the subtle ripple of muscles as they give into the pressure of holding up her weight.

She wants to scream out to Quinn to be careful when the wave starts in her upper thigh; she tries to yell to Julian to hold tighter before it makes its way to her ankle but the words stick to her throat and her feet are moving before she can even process what a really fucking bad idea her body is plotting.

And then Quinn is crashing on top of her.

And it hurts like a motherfucker.

"Jesus!"

She feels like she's been tackled by a football player.

Even worse, a sumo wrestler.

Maybe even a freight train.

She knows the rest of the squad are surrounding them. She can hear Julian's startled apologizes, as well as worried jumbles of "are you ok?" and then their Coach is telling everyone to give them space and take twenty while she summons the team doctor.

Even Julian leaves upon Coach Reyes' requests which Santana really hoped he wouldn't because now they're alone.

Now she's gonna have to come up with some bullshit excuse about why she did that.

Now she's gonna have to figure out why she did that.

"Jesus!" Quinn echoes Santana's earlier exclamation. "What were you thinking, Santana?"

Oh God. Here it goes.

"I mean," Quinn rolls off of her, although her hands are still on her, restless, fawning over her.

That's more like it.

"God, are you ok?" she touching her all over, like somehow her brief touch can assess if anything is broken or damaged beyond repair. Nothing is, Santana kind of feels all heavy all over but nothing's damaged, she sure of it. Ok, well, maybe her psyche is a bit, but as long as Quinn doesn't fixate on the why, then she's sure that can be fixed.

"Did I hurt you?"

She's about to shake her head no, but then the most peculiar thing happens—Quinn's hand stills. Like completely stops with her knuckles just brushing the underside of Santana's breast.

Santana arches an eyebrow at the blonde.

She's pretty sure Quinn doesn't roll like that. Not the her being a girl thing—she's always kind of thought Quinn secretly rolled like that—but the unsuspectingly groping people thing. Like that's not Quinn's style at all.

Quinn ignores her though, her own eyebrows furrowing as her knuckles press closer into supple flesh.

Santana has a snarky comment on the tip of her tongue—like a hilarious one that involves a closet and high school and Rachel Berry— but Quinn speaks before she can get it out.

"San, did you get your implants removed?"

She slaps Quinn's hand away so quickly that her own fingers sting from it.

"_Maybe_," she grits out, face blazing with embarrassment.

She's not embarrassed about getting the implants per se but she can't say that was a time in her life she was particularly proud of.

In fact, all she can really say that was particularly noteworthy about her getting the implants in the first place was being demoted to bottom of the pyramid, that fight with Quinn about her getting demoted to bottom of the pyramid and Quinn apologizing a week later, her eyes all soft and contrite, as she explained that she was worried about her, and not because of the surgery—although the dangers of that worried her too—but because she couldn't really understand why Santana felt the need to do that to herself.

And Santana couldn't understand why Quinn felt the need to get knocked up by Puckerman.

And that was that.

"That wasn't a soft landing at all," Quinn remarks, rubbing her elbow that collided head-on with Santana's collarbone.

"Yeah," Santana agrees, finally managing to sit up without it feeling like her lungs are twisting. "Well, I didn't know you weighed as much as a baby elephant, Q,"

Quinn laughs and it catches Santana off guard, _again_, the way moments of happiness just seem to burst forth from her and wrap tight around Santana until she tingles.

"I guess you _are_ fine," Quinn chuckles, eyes rolling.

And she is. There's residual pain from the fall and her collarbone still kind of stings but she can move everything just fine and she's prepared to say it and keep saying it the moment Coach Reyes comes bursting back through the gym doors with Dr. Fontaine in tow.

As if Quinn can read her mind, she grins shaking her head lightly.

"You're not gonna let the doctor check you out, are you?"

Santana smirks; Quinn knows her better than she thought.

"Not a chance in hell," she agrees.

Quinn smirks this time, offering a hand to help Santana up.

Santana takes it.

"Wanna ditch?" Quinn asks, mischief curling her lips into an insidious smirk.

Seriously, Santana doesn't even have to think twice about that. She's halfway through a text message telling Julian to tell Coach that they're fine and just going to "rest" before Quinn even gets the whole question out.

And, she's halfway to the door already when Quinn surprises her with another laugh.

"What?" she asks, half-annoyed because Quinn's moving so slowly and more annoyed by the fact that Quinn keeps catching her off guard with her laughter.

"Nothing," Quinn murmurs through her laughter, shaking her head as if shaking out her intrusive thoughts. "Just remembered that time we ditched practice in our freshman year,"

Santana rolls her eyes but chuckles nonetheless.

"We had to run extra laps for weeks when Coach Sylvester found out your ankle was anything less than broken," she recalls.

Quinn nods, shrugging slender shoulders.

"Wouldn't change that either," she says, words reflective of their drunken conversation a week or so ago.

They haven't spoken of that conversation since but Santana's sure of what Quinn's implying.

"You wouldn't change that? Even after having to run all those laps?" She asks, incredulous. They hadn't even done much after they took off; they just went back to Santana's house and talked.

_Oh_.

They talked, like two people could talk before the pressure, before their battle for cheerleading captaincy, before the betrayals and backstabbing, before Santana was terrified of herself, terrified of saying anything to or near Quinn that didn't involve an insult of sorts.

Before they were _not-really-friends_.

"First time you'd ever called me your friend; still haven't gotten you to say it again since then," Quinn teases.

Santana rolls her eyes but chuckles.

"Don't get your hopes up on hearing it again, Q,"

/

Apparently, almost being injured calls for a party.

Well, it wasn't a party exactly but at least half of the squad had stopped by to check in on her and Quinn—she's still kind of disconcerted that they just knew they'd find Quinn at her apartment, but whatever—which lead to them all huddling around in her living room to watch movies.

The last person—Julian, of course—just left and now it's just her and Quinn again.

Not for long though. Santana can already feel her eyes dropping from exhaustion or at least, she wishes exhaustion would just seize her and carry her to sleep but the sharp pain in her collarbone is seizing her instead.

It's not _that_ bad. It's not like that omg-it's-broken kind of pain, but it's the kind of sting from pressing down too hard and too long; the kind of sting it'd be stupid to even take a pain killer for.

She presses her fingers into the flesh experimentally, wincing when the pain spreads.

That attracts Quinn's attention.

"It still hurts?" Quinn asks softly.

Santana hums a diffident confirmation.

"Let me take a look,"

And that's when the exhaustion screws her because she tries to jerk out of Quinn's reach but her sluggish movement only seems to make it easier for Quinn to straddle her thighs and tug her shirt collar down until the purplish bruise is uncovered.

Quinn gasps in shock, fingertips just lightly tracing around the bruise.

"Santana, it's bruised pretty badly," she murmurs, concern etched into the lines of her forehead.

Santana rolls her eyes.

"Yeah, well, your elbow isn't exactly all cushion, Quinn,"

"Yeah, I know that, San. It's just—" She's staring at the bruise, eyes following the movement of her thumb as she gently massages around the area.

There's more than concern in her eyes, there's something Santana can't quite name or pinpoint except she knows it's there; it's in the subtle downward curve of her lips and it's bleeding through the hazy strokes of green dashing through hazel.

It's bleeding between them.

In fact, it's suffocating between them because it's only now—now that she can actually see the surges of green in Quinn's eyes—that she realizes how close they are.

Close enough that they're sharing the same pocket of air.

Close enough that whatever is brimming through Quinn right now is filling her up too.

She's on the verge of exploding from it.

"Just what, Quinn?" she hates how her voice comes out sounding pained even though it doesn't hurt; Quinn's circles have edged in on the bruise, but it doesn't hurt.

"Just—" she feels a little better when Quinn's voice comes out with the same breathless strain. "Just why? What were you thinking? You could have broken something. You could have—"

"I didn't want you to get hurt,"

Maybe tiredness works in the same way as drunkenness; maybe that's why the words slip from her lips before her brain even measures them for validity. Maybe that's why the "duh, so I wouldn't have to host anymore tryouts" that she thinks up after won't pull from her vocal cords the way she wills them to.

Maybe that's why she can't seem to stop her eyes from roaming over the supple curve of Quinn's lips.

They're close; so close.

If it were any other girl on the squad, she thinks she'd be having awesome "I-saved-your-life-you-should-be-extremely-grateful sex right now, but it's not any other girl.

It's Quinn.

And _Quinn_'s lips are so closed to hers that she can practically feel the stickiness of her lip gloss.

It's Quinn but she's leaning forward anyway, so close that she's practically inhaling Quinn's breath from her lungs.

So close that she can practically feel a gust of air breeze across her face from the quick flutter of Quinn's eyelashes.

So close that—

"Oh God. I—" Quinn hurls herself off of Santana's lap, eyes wild with panic. "I—I'm gonna get you some ice,"

So close that she very nearly just kissed Quinn Fabray…

Maybe tiredness really does work in the same way as drunkenness.

* * *

><p><strong>Woah, close one right?<strong>

**Hey guys, I'm glad you guys like the agonizingly slow killer pace of this story but I FINALLY advanced it some lol hope you guys like it! **

**Please review! **

**Also, as usual, you can hit me up at: downlikeyourinternet (.) tumblr (.) com**


	6. A Wake Up Call

It takes a day for that gnawing feeling of dissemblance to set in.

It's been two weeks and Santana's pretty sure the walls of her apartment are conspiring to turn her clinically insane.

It's not that she misses Quinn or anything; she still sees Quinn like almost every day at practice and stuff but even then, Quinn just avoids her eyes and doesn't even complain when Santana insults her form and inversely compliments her form and tortures her at the same time by forcing her to do a series of round offs for _demonstrative purposes_.

She guesses what she really misses is the idea of Quinn because for someone as irritating as Quinn is (most of the time at least), they coexist surprisingly easily.

And it's not like Santana even really wanted someone to coexist with—hence the one bedroom apartment—but Quinn fills the space so subtly, not like most of the girls who end up at her apartment, aggravatingly eager to please and just as easy to displease.

And, well for someone who fills the space so subtly, she also fills it so wholly because Santana can't open the fridge without being confronted by things she generally as a rule wouldn't eat unless Quinn cooks it and she finds a book that Quinn has suggested she read on just about every surface that a book can lay, along with a note from Quinn about why she should read it and if she should read it before or after the last book she suggested (those notes are kind of helpful because last time she started to read the book Quinn placed on the dresser before she started the one on the kitchen counter and she was completely mind fucked for like six chapters until she realized she was reading them out of order).

Her apartment even kind of smells like Quinn now but she realized that's because she's been using the same shampoo as Quinn ever since she found out it made her hair like really soft and was actually cheaper than the one she was already using.

Quinn's kind of awesome at spotting really great products and—ok so she really does miss her but Quinn's the one who decided to start acting all shifty instead of talking about what happened—not that Santana has much to say about what happened. Or _almost _happened; Quinn was just really close is all, and jeez, it may be Quinn Fabray but Santana really is only human.

Besides, she is hardly the only one to blame— Quinn was the one that initiated the proximity in the first place and even then, that _pull_ (that deep tug in her chest, hauling her forward like her body was attached to chains) was mutual. She could feel Quinn drawing closer just as much as she was. She could feel that tightly restrained need and—

_Fuck_, she wanted to kiss Quinn Fabray…

And she's pretty sure Quinn Fabray wanted to kiss her back.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

/

"So, when are you two gonna kiss and make up?"

Santana practically snorts her water, like seriously, dying by Dasani is so not the way she wants to go but that mouthful of water goes down about a million ways wrong and she's not entirely sure if she's choking or drowning but she's entirely sure she's dying.

Julian pats her back patiently, waiting for her coughing to subside.

"So?" He asks expectantly.

Santana clears her suddenly burning throat, glaring at him through watery eyes.

"So, what?" she aims for nonchalant, but it comes out as a squeak; she blames that almost dying thing that just happened.

"You and Quinn? You're fighting, right?"

Santana sighs; she should really be suspicious of Julian asking her to go jogging with him by now since three of his last four invitations have somehow managed to become about Quinn and that one time it wasn't about Quinn, he actually just invited Quinn along with them instead.

"We're not fighting, Julian," she answers and for a moment she almost feels bad for lying to him, and then she realizes that she really isn't lying; they're not really fighting.

"You're not?" he asks, completely incredulous. "So, you made her do those extra back handsprings in practice the other night because her form was really sloppy? And she hasn't been in your apartment the last few times I've been over because the luxury of campus living has increased dramatically in the past two weeks?" he laughs but it's not amused, "I call bullshit, Santana. So you may as well tell me what happened so we can patch it up now before it gets out of control,"

"Nothing happened," Once again it's the truth since technically their whole issue is the _something _that really didn't happen but she's not gonna explain technicalities to Julian.

He shoots her a skeptical glance.

"Seriously, it's nothing,"

"Fine," she shrugs, "you don't have to tell me," he takes off jogging again—when did he even get so fast anyway?— but his words come floating airily back to her. "But I hardly doubt you'd let most people shack up in your apartment with you if you didn't really like them so you better be careful you lose this rare friendship over _nothing_,"

/

Fuck Julian being so perceptive and wise. She has to go through a humongous stack of paperwork to find out Quinn's dorm room number and then finding it down a dimly lit hallway with oddly numbered rooms is another feat in itself.

She finds it eventually though and raps her knuckles against the stark white door.

She recognizes the girl who answers immediately from Quinn's description. _Weird roommate. _

She can totally see now why Quinn would be worried about having her head cut off in her sleep; this girl looks nothing short of psychotic, all the way from her horrible bleach dye job to her hand ripped clothes.

She kind of hopes she doesn't have Quinn's head in storage somewhere already.

"Hey," she taps the door frame with her fingertips idly. "Is Quinn around?"

The girl kind of just stares at her for a moment.

"Quinn?" The girl finally calls back into the poorly lit room and Santana can just barely hear Quinn's quick response so Quinn totally can't pretend not to be home now when realizes it's her. "Someone's here for you,"

The girl kind of just leaves her at the doorway after that but Quinn comes to the doorway very soon after and she looks like she might just find an escape route once she realizes who it is.

"Quinn, can we talk?"

"Do you need me to _demonstrate_ another round off a hundred times?"

"Depends. Have they gotten any better?" The snark comes easily—defensively— complete instinct for being called out for something she knows she shouldn't have done but she is really bad at this talking it out thing although she's trying which is more than she can say for Quinn right now. "Look, sorry about that, ok? Can we please just talk?"

"Ok," Quinn agrees reluctantly, leaning against her doorway expectantly.

Santana swears she can see creepy roommate lurking in the background.

"Like in private? Like, say, my apartment? 'Cause I know you're freaking out about your advertising class without your textbook that's just sitting on the coffee table,"

/

The ride to her apartment is completely silent but as she leans her back against her closed front door, she knows the talking is going to have to start.

A bunch of words run through her head but nothing sounds quite right; nothing will leave her lips and the silence has never been more deafening.

"So, I guess you wanna talk about what happened," Quinn boraches carefully.

"No," Santana's thought about it, she's thought about everything she could say about it; hell, she's thought about what she could do about it, but fact is, she really _doesn't_ want to talk about it.

It's just not worth it.

She's lost one best friend over not being able to keep these feelings in check before; it's not worth losing another.

"As far as I'm concerned, Quinn, nothing happened," she says calmly. "Nothing happened, and even if something _did_ happen, it wouldn't be worth losing your friendship over,"

"Santana—"

"Let me finish," Santana swallows, hard, tongue darting out to wet suddenly dry lips. She really sucks at this heartfelt confession shit. "I've denied it, and I'll probably deny it a million more times after this, but you are one of the best friends I've ever had Quinn and I know we've had our ups and downs, more downs that ups really, but this time I want to get it right, Q. I don't want anything to stand in the way of our friendship, ok?"

Quinn's smile is soft, one that spreads from the corners of her lips all the way to her eyes.

"Ok," she agrees, nudging Santana slightly with her shoulder. "I see you've started Tolstoy," she says, reaching for the book she left by the DVD stand.

And just like that, it really is like nothing happened. Quinn settles on the couch listing off reasons why Santana will like the book by the end (which Santana highly doubts because it really is long and dreary) and it feels normal. No queasy feeling of dissemblance, no urge to jump Quinn's bones or anything like that.

Just she and Quinn as friends.

Julian was right, _nothing _would be a stupid thing to lose this friendship over.

**TBC… **

**Review please! =)**

**And I promise there's gonna be more Quinntana romantic feeling soon now that I think I've caught their friendship in a pretty little mason jar, it's the perfect time to give it a shake! **


	7. Subtleties

It becomes like a sort of cheer routine between them.

Sure, Santana is glad to have Quinn back; they fall back into routine almost instantly with Quinn and her cooking and her slow electro rock bands and her reading and her occasional bottles of chilled wines and Santana with her harmless snark and her retro TV and her slowly waning refusal to acknowledge a past that has shaped her more than Quinn will ever get her to admit.

It's almost like they're dancing together except they're carefully choreographing moves that will keep them in sync but at the same time keep them far apart. It's this fear of collision that keeps them in step with one another, keeps them dancing around and across each other; they're on the sidelines cheering for the same team, for this great game that they'll never be a part of.

It's frustrating, but it works.

/

It's the first dream that shakes her.

Sure, Santana's always been prone to vivid and authentic dreams. They've plagued her since as far back as she can remember; in fact, she remembers clearly her childhood which often saw her cuddled between her parents or huddled at the foot of her big brother's bed at night, willing away images of shadowed figures and two headed monsters. During her younger teen years those dreams shifted to less tangible but more threatening fears where she'd wake from fitful bouts of sleep sweating after dreams which often began as normal days at school and ended with her as the laughing stock of the entire student body.

Even now, she still gets them, although they're much vaguer, just bits and pieces of broken images and lots of falling and failing.

Something about this is different though. Much different.

She wakes with no sudden lurch, no sweat, no tears, not even any hoarseness in her throat from latent panicked cries or screams. There's just an odd calm and embers of a dream she can't quite remember flickering just out of her reach.

When she becomes more alert, she realizes that she feels heavy. It's not the typical weighed-down heaviness that she gets after a bad dream though. She doesn't feel trapped or paralyzed, just pleasantly fuzzy in a way that makes her want to burrow into the warmth and stay there until it's not as absorbing. She tries to bring it closer, arching a bit into the static heaviness only to realize that it's very much solid.

Her eyes flutter open.

She realizes first thing that she's not in her bed. There's no ceiling fan and this cream ceiling droops a bit into a modernized architectural slope. It's her living room. The suede of her couch against her back feels familiar once she connects the dots and the weight against her side, although less familiar, suddenly makes sense.

She glances to her side, over a mass of sleep tussled blonde hair, and spies a half empty bottle of wine and two tall glasses sitting on her coffee table.

She knows she wasn't drunk—neither of them were—there is too little of the wine gone and there's no pounding in her head to suggest she'd overindulged in anything, except probably reading. The latest Quinn suggestion that Santana quite frankly finds kind of confusing but keeps reading anyway because Quinn promises her it'll get better, is jammed tightly between their bodies which Santana assumes tangled together sometime during their sleep when their bodies unconsciously realized the covert dangers of two bodies on a really small couch.

Even now that Santana's awake enough to realize that it's Quinn Fabray—the same who got knocked up by her kind of sort of boyfriend in high school, who she shoved against lockers and tripped over on her ascent of the social ladder; the same Quinn Fabray who almost kissed her after years of absence and only months of this mutual redemption, the same Quinn Fabray who she almost kissed back and she's almost certain she would have kissed back if they had continued on that collision course that their winding pasts and intertwining futures had sent them on—who is tucked so firmly into her, she still can't help but use the arm trapped beneath the blonde to tug her in closer against her body and further away from the edge of the couch.

She just doesn't want her to fall, or at least, her mind screams it so loudly she knows it can't be anything but rationalization because she already knows this feeling.

She doesn't remember how it started the first time but she knows the inkling (that tiny static urge to look for half a second too long or let her fingertips linger across a quarter of an inch more smooth flesh than she really should) that swiftly turned into an itch, that turned into an ache so intense she thought she'd burn from it.

Last time, she had too much will to stop it—she tried so hard not to want it that all she really did was want it; this time, she doesn't have enough will to even try to stop it. She knows she should probably try harder—she knows it's not worth it, _she's already told Quinn it's not worth it_— but it's the little things that get her. It's _this_, falling asleep together on her tiny couch in her tiny apartment. It's the way Quinn always pushes her heels into Santana's thigh when they're both lounging on the couch until Santana just tugs her legs onto her lap and keeps them there until Quinn starts fidgeting. It's the way Quinn pulls her hair into a messy pony tail when she's washing dishes and always tries to flick soap suds at her whenever she tells her to tighten her pony. It's a lot of things; a lot of _comfortable_, _familiar _things that Santana has swore for the longest time that she doesn't want because she doesn't want her past. She doesn't want the heartache or the pettiness or the desperation, yet, here she is tangled in one of the greatest reminders of who she doesn't want to be anymore.

And, she doesn't want to move.

Quinn yawns tiredly against her neck and Santana tries to disengage, she tries to detangle and put space between them before Quinn can realize the position their sleeping selves have gotten them into, but Quinn traps her, flinging an arm around her torso and snuggling closer.

"Stop moving! You're comfortable," she husks sleepily, wiggling down to rest her forehead against Santana's neck.

Santana desperately ignores the warmth that seems to spread throughout her and rolls her eyes instead.

"Because clearly I don't mind being your personal pillow toy, Quinn," she huffs even though her hand seems to splay comfortably across Quinn's shoulder blades before her mind can even give it permission.

Quinn's short laughter puffs against her neck, a small smirk curling against her skin in a way Santana knows means that Quinn acknowledges her sarcasm and is gonna ignore it for the simple sake of annoying her.

"Ok, thanks San," she drawls, grinning in amusement. "You're actually not all that comfortable," she teases even though she's snuggling into her like she's a fucking giant teddy bear or something. "Should have kept the implants; might have been comfier,"

There's no moment of hesitation or embarrassment like the last time Quinn mentioned her little high school summer surgery; she recognizes instantly that Quinn is just fucking with her; that she's taking something that in this setting is just a secret between them and she's hollowing it. She's making light of that insecure little girl with all the secrets and the desperate urge to do anything to keep them. She's making light of the person Santana really isn't anymore.

"Yeah, well not all of us can just up and have babies to permanently push us up a cup size," Santana counters and Quinn doesn't tense like she expects her to; she doesn't huff and haul herself off of her; she just chuckles.

And then she laughs.

"You're such a bitch," she murmurs against her, but there's no harshness in her voice, no hurt, just amusement.

"Well I learned from this fervent blonde chick in my freshman year of high school. She had the craziest idea that together we could run the school,"

There's a moment of silence between them, where their breaths just mingle and the hum of the air conditioner creates an unconscious soundtrack,

"She still thinks so," Quinn pipes up finally, voice soft, even against the almost silence.

"Does she?" Santana asks, surprised.

"Well, she's tweaked her method a bit and changed the planned outcome to something more in the realm of inner peace and happiness instead of complete and total power, but she does,"

Santana allows Quinn's intended meaning to sink between them. She acknowledges it, maybe even inwardly appreciates it but she doesn't feel bad when she starts laughing.

"Sounds like she 's turned into a hippie," she speaks through her laughter.

She expects Quinn's annoyed huff and she even deserves the hard knee she gets to the thigh but as she settles back into the serene they've somehow created, she can't help but feel like they've danced a bit closer.

And that worries her a bit.

**So, some more friendship to tide you guys over because I really finally know where I am heading with this story and I felt like it really needed more Quinntana friendship to get there! It's coming though, guys; hint: they really are gonna face their pasts together except this time, they'll get it right =D**

**Review please!  
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	8. Stalling

"Oh my God! You're studying!"

Santana glares from over her text book, unsure whether to punch Quinn for mocking her—when she's been so engrossed in studying that she hasn't even changed out of her pajama bottoms and tee since morning—or hug her because she has grocery bags in her hand which suggests food and Santana is serious levels of starving.

She opts to veer in the direction of the first one though, because Quinn is giving her one of those exaggerated proud grins and no amount of hunger is gonna let her take lip from Quinn Fabray.

"And you're taking God's name in vain," she notes, feigning as much distaste as she can muster. "Aren't we all full of surprises?"

Quinn rolls her eyes but she smiles anyway.

"Don't make fun of my spirituality, Santana," she chastises lightly, nudging Santana with her elbow on her way to the kitchen area. Since the kitchen is just another section of her living room—yeah, her apartment is _that_ small—Quinn doesn't even need to raise her voice to continue with her annoying indifference to Santana's sarcasm. "It's gotten me through a lot, you know?"

"Yeah, well, don't make fun of my study habits," Santana counters. "Or lack thereof. Cramming has gotten _me_ through a lot, you know?" she mocks.

Quinn makes a little humming noise of agreement.

"It seems to have also gotten you through like four energy drinks and a cup of coffee," she observes and Santana can hear the flaps of plastic flutter as Quinn throws the evidence of her all-nighter into their recycling bin.

"Yeah, but it's also gotten me through high school and it's gonna get me through college and hopefully through med school after that,"

It takes the moment of contemplative silence and lack of sharp comeback for Santana to realize what she's just divulged.

She doesn't even know why she said that— delirium from lack of sleep, maybe? She's not sure, but she hasn't even told her dad that she's been thinking of going to med school yet. It's not anything official; she hasn't set anything in stone, but she can practically hear the cogs in Quinn's brain turning, analyzing a decision she hasn't even made.

"You're planning on going to med school?" Quinn asks, far too casual, when Santana knows that what she really means is: '_Is this something you've decided for yourself?' _and '_Do you think this will make you happy?' _

That's what Quinn's all about nowadays—making individual, independent decisions and happiness.

"It's just something I'm thinking about, Quinn," Santana defends; she really doesn't like the worried glance Quinn shoots her. "But like, whatever, I've got two years," she brushes it off, moving to distraction instead. "Much better question, are you planning on cooking?"

She knows that Quinn knows that she's just trying to push the prior subject away and luckily, Quinn knows her enough to know that this isn't a subject she can push, so she drops it.

"That was the idea," Quinn states, glaring hard at her when she drops her studying completely to make her way to the kitchen and prod at whatever pre-cooked items Quinn has unpacked from her shopping.

She grabs an apple, a string of cheese and Quinn's already half-drank bottle of orange juice before Quinn's glaring becomes too opportune for her to not make fun of.

"I know my face is pretty, Quinn. You can stop staring at it,"

Quinn scoffs, elbowing her out of her way.

"I thought you were studying,"

"Yeah, well I was and then you distracted me with the prospect of food,"

"I could always find somewhere else to cook. Julian's maybe? He's been asking to hang out,"

Santana huffs at Quinn's bluff but she grabs her book from the coffee table anyway and cracks it open on the kitchen island so she can at least still study and bug Quinn while she's cooking at the same time.

She makes sure to throw Quinn a pointed glare as she takes a seat, but Quinn's immune to that too.

"So, finals are coming up," Quinn says after a few moments of comfortable silence. Santana glances up to see Quinn skinning some giant purple fruit/vegetable type thing.

"Well, I'm clearly not pulling all-nighters for my health, Quinn,"

"Yeah, about that; why didn't you tell me you were staying up? I would have stayed up with you,"

Santana shrugs; as nice as some company would have been, when she snuck out of her room late last night to grab another energy drink, Quinn was already sprawled on the couch, sleeping peacefully in a cocoon of blankets. She wouldn't have asked her to sacrifice that, especially when she wanted so badly to just kinda curl up with her. Except like, not _with her_, but next to her.

"Besides, even more important than finals, Cheer United is also coming up," Santana reminds her.

"More important than finals?"

"Fine, _just as _important as finals," Santana amends. "You know, a few goods wins at Cheer United and then next year, we qualify for JAMfest; we place in a few categories at JAMfest then by my senior year, I can lead the squad to placing a few times in the Cheerleading Worlds; which is a huge deal, as you know,"

"Yeah, I do," Quinn agrees, although she seems far more inquisitive than excited.

"What?" Santana asks. Clearly, Quinn has something that she's stopping herself from saying.

"Nothing. I just—"

"You just what?"

"I mean, Cheer Worlds is big! I just didn't know cheerleading meant that much to you is all; it certainly didn't in high school,"

Santana really can't argue with that, because cheerleading really didn't mean much to her in high school. It really was just a way to keep herself far up the social ladder and keep herself mostly on Sue Sylvester's good side. Sure, she did kinda like cheering, it kept her in shape and Coach Sylvester randomly flinging things during routines kept her eye-hand coordination sharp, plus the uniforms were awesome, but apart from that, it really wasn't something that she particularly liked.

It's different here though. Sometimes, when she gets caught up in a routine—and she actually does that here; finds herself caught in the spins and turns and flips until the world kind of just disappears—it's easy to forget that this is mostly what's paying for her classes and her apartment and not something she's just doing for fun. It's also a lot easier to attend the events and the parties and share laughs with the squad when there are very little ulterior motives and a lot less backstabbing; Coach Reyes has instilled a sense of cohesiveness among the squad that Santana has to admit, although begrudgingly, that she really sort of appreciates.

She honestly hasn't felt this kind of freedom in a group since… well, since Glee. Although, that isn't something she's about to admit to Quinn, so she shrugs her shoulders instead.

"I like winning," she says defensively, but Quinn flashes her one of those genuine proud smiles—the kind that lights up rooms, and makes Santana's chest kind of flutter—and she knows that Quinn is seeing right through her façade. She only allows a quick moment of indulgence before she does what she does best to tame the sudden sappiness that has sucked the air out of the room; she scowls. "Besides, a lot of important people were cheerleaders,"

"Oh," Quinn's smile turns teasing. "Like?"

"Like Paula Abdul,"

"Very impressive," Quinn jokes.

"And Christina Aguilera,"

"Didn't know that one,"

"And here's one to appeal to your hipster wiles: Steve Martin!"

Quinn gives a long throaty chuckle, like she can't quite believe what she's hearing or even more likely, like she can't believe that Santana just said that.

"Oh please, I am not a hipster and neither is Steve Martin,"

"Sounds like just the type of thing a hipster would say. And Steve Martin is like the O.H.! Original Hipster. You only wish you could be as hipster as Steve Martin,"

"You are ridiculous,"

"Mmmhmm. At least I'm not a hipster,"

Santana doesn't see it coming, she doesn't even suspect it until she feels something cold and slimy running down her cheek.

She wipes the residue off slowly, the rest of her body stock still in complete disbelief.

"You did not just throw a piece of your vegetable thing at me!"

"It's eggplant, Santana. Plenty of antioxidants. Great for your pretty face," she teases, through a fit of laughter.

"You're not gonna like what you just started, Q," Santana warns, a sly smile turning menacing.

"Oh really? Because it seems like I have all the "vegetable thingy" over here and you have—"

Santana times it perfectly, one flick of her wrist and a splash of organic valley orange juice hits Quinn square in the chest. The squeal she makes is probably the funniest thing Santana has heard in days.

"I really can't believe you just did that," Quinn huffs, giving Santana just enough time to duck behind the counter as a barrage of thinly sliced carrots falls on top of her.

That's all it takes to wage a complete food war.

Just about every vegetable Santana has ever heard of and a lot she really hasn't, is strewn on the kitchen floor and lodged down their shirts and in their hair by the time Quinn manages to catch Santana's hands and pin her against a kitchen counter—a feat which Santana has to attribute to Quinn's "spirituality" because she really can't describe it as anything but an act of God.

It doesn't even occur to Santana how close they really are until she feels the strain of Quinn's laughter against her, their bodies fitted in a way that really shouldn't be, not with the way Santana's thoughts have been running asymmetrical to her common sense lately.

"Quinn?" her voice betrays her in its breathiness, but so does Quinn's breathlessness.

It seems Quinn's attention suddenly deviates to their sudden proximity as well because she catches Santana's gaze and Santana swears she has never in her life seen Quinn look this intense. Not when she was captain of the Cheerios, tearing through McKinley halls, not after her fall from grace, when she was Ms. Teen Statistic and not even when she was president of the Celibacy Club.

Definitely not when she president of the Celibacy Club.

Honey irises are ringed dark and pink lips parted and Santana knows she _has _to move before she does something stupid.

"We should probably clean up," She suggests, trying to tame the sudden static intensity between them. It's trying to pull her in when all she wants to do is retreat although she has nowhere to retreat to—even her bedroom is as tainted with Quinn as her mind is.

"Yeah," Quinn agrees, nodding even though she doesn't budge.

"Right," Santana affirms, exhaling a shaky stream of breath.

She doesn't know in what world cleaning up equates to kissing, but apparently, it's this one, and with Quinn's lips on hers, she hardly finds it in herself to care.

**Well, they've really gone and done it now, haven't they? **

**Review please =)**

**Hints for future chapters: They're gonna have to talk about this one. Also, cheerleading will play a big part in the next few chapters as we move onto Cheer United which just happens to be in a certain city that another Nationals that lead to this Quinn and Santana to where they are now, was also in. Riddles! **


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